


By a Thread

by freckledstardust



Series: Cyanide for the Mind [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Depression, Drabble, Gen, High School, Mental Health Issues, Self Confidence Issues, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 01:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1410694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freckledstardust/pseuds/freckledstardust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a drabble for a human, mental hospital AU series named "Cyanide for the Mind", which consists of Dean, Castiel, Sam, and Crowley living in the same hallway, forming a closer bond to one another, and coping with their own individual illnesses. This particular drabble does not take place in the mental hospital but focuses on the events that eventually lead to Crowley's admittance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By a Thread

**Author's Note:**

> Just a few notes to be aware of:  
> \- Crowley's parents are fabricated characters for the purpose of this AU. In this AU, they are actually his foster parents, who adopted him from Scotland.  
> \- Clara is simply one of the housemaids. She often picks up Crowley from school.  
> \- IF DEPRESSION/SELF HARM UPSETS YOU, PLEASE HIT THE BACK BUTTON.

Crowley had entered the kitchen that morning the same way he had the few days before. His head was held low and he dragged his feet to the table.

“I’m not hungry,” he stated dryly, dismissing his mother with the wave of his hand before she could even ask. He sat down and crossed one of his arms over the table’s surface, the cool touch of the new table cloth tickling his skin. His other arm was dangling off his side, fist gnarled loosely.

“Again?” she asked. “You don’t even want a little oatmeal, or-”

Crowley shook his head.

Exhaling deeply, she shrugged and sipped her coffee. Her husband soon shuffled into the room, arms half-through his jacket.

“Honey, have you seen my car keys?”

“Not recently,” she replied.

Crowley’s fist tightened. His father snapped his head so quickly in Crowley’s direction that his slim glasses had slipped down the bridge of his nose.

“Fergus. Give me the keys.”

“On one condition.”

“Excuse me? Who the fuck do you think you are? If I tell you to give me the keys, you give me the goddamn keys!”

“Settle down,” his wife hushed. “Let’s hear what he has to say. And what condition is that?”

Crowley leaned back in his seat, avoiding eye contact.

“I stay home from school.”

His father looked about ready to lift the table and toss it across the room, even if his lanky arms could never accomplish such a strain.

“Absolutely not. This is the third day this week you’ve asked to stay home!”

“Please don’t make me go!” he pleaded. “I hate it there… none of the other kids like me, and-”

“And whose fault is that?” his mother chimed in, gripping the handle of her coffee mug sternly. “You never make an effort to make friends! You always come straight home from school! You’re not in any sports, or any clubs, or anything!”

“I’ve heard just about enough,” his father growled. He grabbed Crowley by his arm and painfully forced his fingers open, snatching the keys from his hand. Crowley barely put up a fight.

“Get in the car right now."

Defeated, Crowley rose from the table and slowly put his jacket on. He took as long as he could buttoning it up, fear growing within the pit of his stomach as each button slipped through its sewn hole.

‘Please don’t make me go...’ he thought, staring at his parents. ‘Please…’

But his parents couldn’t tell what he was thinking. They never could.

Crowley walked like a dead man into the sleek, black SUV. He didn’t bother with the seatbelt and sat silently as his father drove him to his prison. He gazed out the window for most of the ride, watching as the bare autumn trees passed by. The sky was chalk against the ashen wood. The only color in the streets was on the traffic lights. Crowley wished the lights would stay red forever.

“Don’t even think about coming home early,” his father warned. “Clara will be picking you up, so I'll know if you left before."

His father drove off, leaving Crowley in front of the school. Gripping the straps of his backpack as if his life depended on it, Crowley made the long trek up the stairs and through the front doors.

The halls were crowded with students running this way and that towards their first class. Some were lucky enough to have their lockers right by the front door. Easy access, a lot less shoving… these students were able to scram into their homerooms without dealing with any hallway bullshit. Crowley was not one of those few fortunate. His locker was on the third floor, all the way cornered in the back of the right wing.

Taking a deep breath, Crowley vanished into the crowd. He kept his eyes fixated on the stairs. Voices droned in and out on both sides, but he refused to focus on any of the words floating in that aerial alphabet soup. He looked at no one. He spoke to no one. He acknowledged no one. The only thing Crowley cared about was reaching his locker before running into _him_. He was never in a mood to see _him_. But especially not today.

‘Just keep going,’ he told himself, practically running up the stairwell. It was hard, with all the people clogging the path on both sides. Not to mention, Crowley wasn’t exactly fit. But he forced his short legs up those steps, landing after landing, until he reached the third floor. He was shaken and out of breath, but he kept moving. There was no time to stop. _He_ would be here any moment. He had to move faster, faster, faster down the hall. He swerved down the corner into the musky depths of lockers. His locker was right outside the boys bathroom, which always reeked of tobacco smoke.

Crowley crouched down before his locker, coughing. But no, he couldn’t stop yet. He gasped a few times before fiddling with the locker combination as fast as he could. It wouldn’t budge. He tried again, and the same thing happened. He was spinning the lock too fast. He just wanted to get out of here. Forcing himself to slow down, he twirled the lock left, right, left… and presto. It opened. Crowley snatched his English books from the mess of loose-leaf and textbooks. He made it. Sighing in relief, he shut the locker door.

“Hey, Crowley!”

Crowley tensed up. The metal rings on his notebook clanked against one another in the clutches of his trembling hands.

No. He made sure to get here as fast as he can. But that condescending voice was right there, right in front of him. Crowley forced himself to look up, and was greeted by the smirk of a tall blonde.

“Lucifer, I-”

“What, no hello? I’m offended!” Lucifer pressed his hand against his chest dramatically, pouting. “Did your housemaids forget to teach you any manners? Or did they just forget about you?”

Crowley looked down. He refused to stare into those piercing blue eyes. “I have to get to class.”

“Gees, you’re no fun,” Lucifer rolled his eyes. “What’s the rush to get to class? It’s not like you have any friends to run over to.”

Crowley exhaled deeply, trying not to listen. “I said I have class,” he repeated, shoving past Lucifer. He kept his gaze ahead. Maybe if he ignored his bully, he would give up and go away.

But he didn’t.

“See? That. That’s why nobody likes you,” Lucifer commented, trailing right behind Crowley. Crowley tried to block out that irritating sound. “You’re such a bitch! You can’t even say ‘good morning’. At least I know proper morning etiquette. And look at me! I’ve got a ton of friends.”

‘Leave me alone…’ Crowley wanted to say. ‘Just leave me alone…’

Crowley finally made it to his English class. As he opened the door, Lucifer whispered, “Say hi to your friends for me! - Oh, wait. That’s right.” He laughed all the way to his own class. And even after he left, his laughter echoed in Crowley’s head. It was a stain, permanently embedded in his mind.

Crowley sat in the back of the class, as far away from everyone as he could. When the teacher asked the class to split up into groups, Crowley was the only one by himself. The teacher had to squeeze him into a group of kids he did not know well. But he could already tell they didn’t like him very much.

The small teen stayed silent the entire period. He offered nothing to the discussion, and nothing to their Great Gatsby inspired poster board. But the group didn’t seem to mind at all.

The next few classes were a blur. Crowley was there, he knows he was, but he heard nothing that the teachers said. He was so tired. In history class, his teacher called on him to answer a question he didn’t hear. He refused to answer, causing some of his classmates to giggle.

‘They think I’m a fucking idiot,’ he thought.

During lunch, Crowley sat alone. Castiel was absent today, so Sam had moved to a different table before Crowley arrived there.

‘He must only sit with me because of Castiel,’ he thought.

Crowley bought a muffin from the food line, and had gotten half way through it before he stopped. Sick with himself, he threw the other half out and walked to his next class early. It was a double-period math exam. Or, it was supposed to be. Crowley didn’t even write his name on the test. He just sat there, spaced out, too tired to do anything, and handed in his blank sheets to the teacher after the bell rang. Irritated, the teacher tore up the test immediately and wrote a big zero under his name in the test book.

‘She thinks I’m worthless,’ he thought.

Clara picked him up in front of the school, as promised. Once he was home, he dropped his backpack limply by the door and went up to his room. The stairs seemed like a mountain. He climbed, step after step, dragging his legs like caskets up and up and up until he finally reached his door.

Crowley had barely stepped into the room before he slunk down to the floor and started crying. He was exhausted. He was starving. He was lonely. He was miserable. He laid on his side beside the door and curled up. He cried until his throat dried and eyes stung. His chest was melting, crumbling and collapsing into itself. His parents were right. Lucifer was right. His classmates were right. They were all right. He had no friends. Nobody liked him. And it was all his fault. He wasn’t worthy of love. He was shattering into a million pieces and he deserved it. He deserved it because he had committed the greatest sin of all. Being born.

* * *

 

He wasn’t sure how long he had been lying on the floor, but by the time he lifted his head, the sun had gone down behind the trees. His room was dark. There was no glow or warmth anywhere. 

He forced himself off the ground and flipped the light switch. He looked up at the wine ceiling. His black, four paneled fan propelled gently above the oval curved ceiling light. For a moment, he kept transfixed on it. 

He wheeled his computer chair under the fan. He then climbed up onto the seat. Two pieces of silver beading hung underneath the light. He tugged the shorter one twice, bringing the fan panels to a halt. opened his closet door. Scanning through the sewage of clothes, there, on the bottom of the pile, was a coil of hiking cord. It had been a gift to him on his eleventh birthday. He had never hiked, and was the least bit athletic. His parents were notorious for using their wealth to buy Crowley many useless things. 

He twisted the cord tightly and then tied it into a knot. He wrapped the cord around itself again and again and again. He tossed the other end of the cord over on of the fan panels. Stepping up on the chair again, he fastened the cord tightly. He tugged a few times. It was tight. 

He slipped the noose over his neck. 

‘Maybe I should write a note,’ Crowley thought. But what was the point? No one would want to read that. 

No. He would finish this in silence. 

The last thing he thought about was Castiel. Castiel, his only friend. He hoped Castiel had a happy life. 

The rest could join Crowley in hell. 

He swung his foot back and kicked the chair as hard as he could. It wheeled a bit before toppling over. 

The cord dug into his neck. Suspended over the ground, he began to choke and sputter. It was hard to breathe. He could barely move his muscles. He swung gently, the fan panels turning this way and that. 

After ten seconds, he lost consciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> After the events of this drabble, Crowley is found and revived and sent to the hospital, where he stays for a few days to recover. It is from there that Crowley's parents have a long discussion with one of the doctors and it is decided that he should "take some time off".


End file.
